Thursday, March 10, 2011

Favorites and Least Favorites (Part 1)

Having played since Vanilla and having done just about every instance in the game, it still took me a few minutes to think up some good answers.

In recent days, I have taken to leveling via instance. I enjoy running things with friends. I get really bored questing in the same ole content constantly. I have been instance leveling my Dwarf Shaman in Outlands. I don't know that I will be able to do that in Northrend as I am tired of both the quests AND the instances there.

Anyways, back from my rambling and back to talking about favorites and most hated. Once again, there have been so many so I will just break them down by expansion.

Vanilla WoW Favorites:

Deadmines: This was the first instance that I ever ran way back in the day. It was somewhat difficult at level way back when (addmitedly, I did not know how to play properly). It also had a pretty cool Pirate setup that reminds me of the Goonies. It was huge, but quite easy to navigate (besides getting into the instance for the first time). There was even a cool storyline behind VanCleef if you managed to do the quests leading up to that point.

Scholomance and Stratholme: I don't really know that I incredibly enjoyed these instances. I just found that I ran them on a daily basis with a good group for friends. We just wanted to kill some baddies and get some loot....and spend a few hours doing it. These instances were not short. We never did Scholmance with 10 people. We used crowd control. We did not just AOE mobs down. Back then, there was no such thing as AOE tanking for a Warrior tank. It was all about tab sunders. Kill order and CC was important (kinda how it is now in Cata). I had a Priest who would pull mobs for me. Yes. The healer was doing the pulling.

These were my first "srs bsns" instances and I didnt really know what I was doing. I cut my teeth as a tank in these instances. They were difficult. You had to not stand in stuff. You had to not pull aggro unless you wanted to be dead. It was epic for me. I don't think that the instance in itself will ever be as epic as the memories of it.

Incidentally, my wife named Strat as one of her favorites because of all of the times I ran her through to gather runecloth....to get to exalted with Gnomer. I was in there tons and tons of times. Still never got Mr. Rivendares Deathcharger.....he was being a little bitch on those visits apparently.

Vanilla WoW Most Hated:

This list is actually pretty easy for me to populate for a couple of reasons. Back when we didnt get to instantly teleport to Dungeons, I didnt really do any of the ones on Kalimdor. That pretty much ruled out Mauradon and Dire Maul. My two least favorites were other annoying sprawing instances with confuding level curves.

The first was Gnomeregan. I mean...what the eff man. That place was horrendous. You go in, get mobbed by leper gnomes, can't find your way anywhere, and then have to finish at a later time because there were yellow con mobs at the beggining and they are red by the end. This giant pile o shit made for many annoying runs. Not to mention that you wanted to pull your hair out with the stupid punch machine quests. Oops, we missed one. Lets go back. Crap, respawns. Oh well, we can finish some other time that we have 2-3 hours to kill.

The second was Uldaman. The place was huge....and confusing. We didnt have instance maps back then. It made we want to punch a baby. Or kick a puppy. It was like a damn instance outside of an instance. I mean....come on! You have to fight all kinds of shit to even get to the instance. Then you have to try and figure out where the hell you are going inside. Then you have to make sure that a single person picks up both staff fragments or else you are unable to complete the instance.

What is the one common denominator for both of those crap holes? Troggs. Which is why I hate me some fucking Troggs. More than Murlocs. More than Naga. Troggs can suck it Trebeck.

Anyways, I am going to make a series of posts with Favorites/Most Hated, so this one will be continued with BC instances.

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Favorites: - Dire Maul. I thought it was really fun doing the Tribute runs and overall I thought the mobs in there were really interesting. Many might disagree but I thought all the bosses were unique, do-able but not too easy and chasing that stupid imp was funny.

- Shadowfang Keep. Only reason I think I really enjoyed this instance because I had to do it for a paladin quest and although the weapon debuffs and ghosts made it hard, I liked the challenge it had.

Worst: -Temple of Atal'Hakkar aka Sunken Temple. I hated this instance the first time I had to go in there for my level 55 warlock robe. We spent like 5 hours in there after it was a 10 man instance and we still didn't finish the damn thing. Not to mention those stupid snake stones that had to be the right order or you couldn't summon the boss.

- Scholomance. Even though I liked the instance for its content, it just sucked BAD when I was doing my warlock mount quest in Vanilla.

-Zul'Farrak. Gong quest was painful, and you could only summon Gahz'rilla...which to do your quest you needed to, so you had to have the gong, or atleast someone in the group that had it. The timed event with Sergeant Bly was just horrible, especially if you pulled to many, and god forbid you didn't know that you had to talk to Bly, they hearthed out and you couldn't do the last boss. Also I had problems with pricks getting the key yo unlock the cages, only to leave group and hearth and log.